


Ils Sont Ailleurs Bien Plus Loin Que la Nuit

by vogue91



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 6: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, F/M, Ficlet Collection, Flash Fic, Introspection, Not Actually Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 12:21:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13166814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vogue91/pseuds/vogue91
Summary: And Pansy, through those eyes, was able to tell that there was something deeply wrong with Draco that year.As if he didn’t have a soul anymore, almost.She had never cared much for these idiocies, persevering in her senseless and goalless love, and yet now that it was missing, its absence was heavy.





	Ils Sont Ailleurs Bien Plus Loin Que la Nuit

**_Bien plus haut que le jour_ **

He grimaced.

It was too sunny that day.

Too much light, too many laughs, too much _noise_.

He just wanted silence.

He sought refuge under a tree in the yard, far enough as to not hear his schoolmate’s ruckus.

And he stared at the sky. That stain of blue so intense as to annoy him, to the point of desiring it for it to disappear.

He hated that clearness, because in a way it was like it reflected something he was not, that he would never be.

In that moment, _she_ came to mind. He chuckled.

So bloody stupid. So bloody in love.

In love with what? There was no room for love inside him, nothing that even deserved to be loved. Nor that desired it.

And yet Pansy was stubborn, much more than the would’ve expected from her.

Stubborn, because she couldn’t surrender in front of the obvious.

Stubborn, because she couldn’t see that he was empty, and that there was no way to love that emptiness.

And he cursed himself, for he had no right to have a say in the matter.

In the end, did he really know that love, the real thing, was? Had he ever loved so deeply to condemn himself to Hell for all eternity?

The more he thought about it, the more he saw that he couldn’t understand such an insidious feeling, such a useless one.

He _was_ condemned to Hell. He was because that was his destiny, he was for the Mark burning relentlessly his arm.

He was for the evil, for the thirst for recognition.

He hated that Pansy loved him, just because he couldn’t understand her.

He sighed, closing his eyes and leaning against the rough trunk of the tree.

The sky had faded, all of a sudden.

And that darkness looked like the emptiness inside him. An emptiness _impossible_ to love.

 

**_Dans l’eblouissante claret de leur premier amour_ **

She looked at him.

As she always did.

She looked, and looked, and looked.

And by doing so she was capable of catching every slight change in him, in his gestures, in his attitude, in his words.

Not that there was so much to notice; since the year had begun, Draco had stayed more or less the same: cold, but colder than usual. Distant, pensive, anxious... almost desperate, in her eyes. Those very same eyes that never lied to her, that were able to read the boy better than anyone else, used to the task as they was.

They had brushed him endless times to say she didn’t know him inside and out.

And Pansy, through those eyes, was able to tell that there was something deeply _wrong_ with Draco that year.

As if he didn’t have a soul anymore, almost.

She had never cared much for these idiocies, persevering in her senseless and goalless love, and yet now that it was missing, its absence was heavy.

She shivered. She couldn’t say what brought her to believe Draco didn’t have a soul anymore, nor she could say clearly how she knew.

She just knew there was a chasm inside of him, expressed by the emptiness of his eyes. Cold, but not of that coldness she had fallen in love with.

As if they were _dead._

And a little, because of it, she died as well. A little more each time she followed him with her gaze, every time she talked to him, pretending nothing had changed.

She died, because that was the price of a love she couldn’t give up.

She bit her lip.

Did Draco know what love, the real thing, was? Had he ever loved so deeply as to condemn himself to Hell for all eternity?

It was one of those questions she should’ve never ask to herself, because the answer hurt too much.

Draco ignored what love was. He ignored it, had he a soul or not.

Pansy did have a soul, even though not a very candid one, and she knew love, which instead was the purest thing existing.

Ironically uncorrupted, sincere.

She envied Draco, for just a moment.

It was her soul that was killing her, slowly.

 

**_C’est seulement leur ombre qui tremble dans la nuit_ **

The thoughts ran.

Faster than him, actually.

They ran through Hogwarts’ hallways and to the Room of Requirement, where it would’ve all begun.

Or perhaps, for him, ended.

He sighed, for the millionth time that year. I looked at himself I the mirror, as if he couldn’t truly see the image reflected.

He could only see a corpse, unbelievably pale and with his face sunken in anxiety and insomnia. A corpse barely human.

He would’ve wanted to go back to a normal life, for once. He couldn’t believe he would’ve ever desired such a thing, but he had come to terms with himself, with what that delusion of grandeur had made of him, and had to realize that desires are bloody dangerous when come true.

He closed his eyes, surrounding himself in his beloved darkness.

And thoughts started suddenly walking instead of running, slow, almost pleasant. He saw himself at a crossroads, he saw himself taking the easier path, a path that would bring him far from that fear, from that solitude.

A path that, unexpectedly, had its peak in _her_ face.

If only he had had the strength, he would’ve laughed of himself.

For the whole year, he had had like the feeling that Pansy was trying to read inside of him. As if she actually wanted to know what was happening to him.

Draco had thought it was one of those sides of love, and hadn’t worried about it.

Feeling her eyes on, feeling almost _violated_ from her piercing stares, made him want to scream, to ask for help, to scream in her face all that was going on.

But he knew he had to keep quiet, and it _hurt_ him. Hurt to the point of being disgusted in himself, for his double ineptitude: carrying out his task and asking for help because he couldn’t do it.

When the vortex of his thoughts become too fast for him to bear, he opened his eyes again. The face in the mirror was still the same, perhaps even more tired.

Draco wasn’t closer than he had been months before to understand what love was; he knew just one thing: love, the real thing, condemned you to Hell for all eternity. And even finding himself there for a whole other reason, he knew one thing for sure: both he and Pansy were lost into the darkest corners of that Hell.

 

**_Leur rage, mèpris_ **

Nothing was going to happen.

She had waited for month for him to tell her something, tenths of times she thought she was seeing him hesitate, as if he had finally decided to speak to her.

But it hadn’t happened, and she had grown tired of waiting.

And, as tired as she was, she couldn’t still shut up all of her feelings when she saw him.

But they were less pure than a few months before. It was still love, but a loved stained by frustration, by the neglected delusions.

By the grudge she felt for him, so stubborn and uncaring for all those around him.

For the first time, Pansy asked herself what had brought her to feel something for him, when clearly there were no reasons for him to deserve to be loved.

 _As there are none to love you_ the rational part of her told her, the one she was always eager to keep quiet. And it was true. There were no reason for her, as well as Draco, to deserve love. Nor she demanded for it to exist, in the end. She just wanted for him to notice her, to look at her just once and being actually able to _see_ her.

But he couldn’t, maybe he didn’t want to, maybe she was the farthest thing from his mind.

That’s what she kept repeating to herself like a mantra, day after day, yet she couldn’t find it in herself to surrender.

To stop following him with her gaze, to stop worrying about him, to stop shivering anytime he got too close.

It was impossible, for all those gestures had become a part of the person she was, and thinking about Draco Malfoy over and over again was as natural as breathing.

Just like, lately, had become natural to hate him.

Could one really feel such grudge for a loved one?

Maybe she had been wrong, and she actually didn’t understand a thing about what she felt. And she had confused the desire to hurt herself with an honest love.

Or perhaps loving really meant to get hurt.

Love, the real thing... it was her Hell, what she had condemned herself to, what would’ve bound her to that illusion till the end of days.

Her Hell and her Heaven... they both had the face of Draco. 


End file.
